Edward Kennedy will be remembered as a man who overcame an impoverished, hardscrabble upbringing to matriculate at Harvard, where he soon established a reputation for extraordinarily original thinking. Before his election in 1962 he had complied such a record of accomplishment that the voters of Massachusetts were impatient at the Constitutional age limit of 30 for senators.

When faced with a great personal crisis, Kennedy acted with such straightforward candor and courage as to embody that old adage, "Let justice be done, though the heavens may fall."

In his only run for the presidency, he laid out such a coherent vision of his reasons for seeking that office that it was only through the machinations of his opponent that he was deprived of it.

In his 45 years as a Senator, Kennedy's green-eyeshade approach to spending and careful appreciation of the Constititional restraint on the reach of the Federal government earned him the affectionate title of "The Taxpayer's Friend."

A faithful husband as well as the father of another upstanding legislator, Edward Kennedy was the embodiment of his Catholic faith. We will not see his kind again.

At the wedding of the son of one of Ted's best friends (a former senator whose father was a really famous jock... guess who), a friend dragged me over so we could stand behind Kennedy. I asked my friend what he was doing. He said, "I want to drink next to the guy who has his own room in the Drinking Hall of Fame." Ted heard the remark... and was not amused.

"Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, scoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is - and is often the only - protector of the individual rights that are at the heart of our democracy. . .no justice would be better than this injustice."

As a Catholic, I pray for his soul. Other than that, the kindest thing I can force myself to say is good riddance to bad rubbish.

"....to speak for those who have no voice; to remember those who are forgotten; to respond to the frustration and fulfill the aspiration of all Americans seeking a better life in a better land....for all those whose cares have been our concern, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die."

Edward Moore Kennedy, August 12, 1980

I'll never forget the night Ted Kennedy gave that speech at the Democratic National Convention after failing to win his party's nomination for the presidency. I was staying in a one-room kitchenette in Liverpool, NY, just outside of Syracuse. It was - and remains - the greatest political oration of my lifetime. Watching the event on a small, black and white TV I instinctively knew I was witnessing one of those sublime moments in American history that would be remembered a century into the future.

Teddy Kennedy died late last night at the age of seventy-seven. In a life that is littered with ironies, here's the biggest one of all: His three older brothers - Joe, Jack and Bobby - are eternally frozen in our imagination as the personifications of youth. How poignant that our final image of the baby of that family will be as an old man, frail and mortally ill.

An incredible realization just came to me: Teddy represented the state of Massachusetts for forty-six years, eight months and nineteen days. That is nearly three months longer than all the years his older brother Jack lived on earth. Forgive the cliche that is so overused it has become trite through repetition, but this really is the end of an era.

Actually, let us hope that this torch is extinguished. We do NOT need a dynastic political class in this country. That includes Bush, Clinton, Kennedy and anyone else. Our representatives in government should be chosen based on merit and not the happenstance of birth.

When we have a ruling elite, like the Kennedy clan, we end up with people with inflated egos, no accountability and who have no connection with the people that they are supposed to be representing. They consider themselves our rulers and our betters. All the worse for them and the rest of us.

How difficult it must have been to try to live up the the over inflated, iconic, glowing reputations of his older brothers Jack and Joe and the "Sainted" Bobby, when you are not much more than mediocre. In reality, they were not all that 'sainted' either, but when your family and the public make them so....it would be tough to try to force yourself into that halo.

Especially when you know it wasn't true of them and certainly wasn't fitting well on you.

I remember being taught as a small child about manners, there being a time and place for everything, and two wrongs not making a right. Those were near-universal beliefs in the neighborhood I grew up in. Times have changed, I see.

Oh please, if this were a Republican the left would be partying like it was 1999 and wishing that he or she was burning in hell.

Take a tour of the right blogosphere and you will find most of the responses to be muted, even reluctantly respectful. Yeah, some snark, I mean he did kill a woman after all, but didn't some lefty blogger post something about comity only going so far?

Riiiight. Even if true which it isn't, isn't the "they did it tooooo!" so 3rd grade? Your words.

Oh I'm not using it as an excuse garage, just simply pointing out you guys are hardly the models of compassion. Hell I yield to no one my disdain for the guy and I don't apologize for calling it like I see it, his death notwithstanding.

And if you want to deny your side wasn't cheering Reagan and Snow's death, I have a bridge in Oakland to sell you. Oh I forgot. Those bastard Asian dealers in Vegas took all your money. Never mind.

As someone who pretended to be a Catholic while leading the charge for abortion, I think the millions of tortured souls who where murdered in the womb might have something to say about the Senator when he steps up for judgement.

For some reason this morning I am thinking about an Alternate Universe Teddy Kennedy, in which Joseph Kennedy never conceived political ambitions for his descendants. No buying Senate seats, no scandals, none of the damage Teddy eventually did to the country and its ordinary people.

In that universe, Teddy Kennedy has just died after the same illness, after a long, productive, and happy life spent in some ordinary pursuit that had nothing to do with politics. Most people don't know his name and his obituary is carried in the Boston papers, not the national news. In this alternate life, circumstance never tested the weak spots in his character, and he never drastically failed in integrity. He used his many qualities for good for the people around him, not in the pursuit of power and fame. In that life, he died in old age, surrounded by family, with his brothers nearby, and no one who knew him has any cause to remember him with anything but kindness.

I'm not sure what this means, if anything. But this morning I find myself feeling sorry for the man. Many members of that family would have led far happier lives if not for the family's grasping at dynastic greatness - including Teddy. May he rest in peace and may God comfort his family and friends.

It would be good to see you man up and call the hatred expressed toward Tony Snow by the left completely wrong as well (bearbee above showed it to you here). It would give your earlier comments a shot of integrity rather than just make you look like a hateful anti-right knee-jerk.

You can decry the hate of the left without lessening your criticism of the remarks here.

There was Ted Kennedy the tyrant legislator seeking to expand ruling power at every turn with no regard for Constitutional limits, and there was Ted Kennedy the man.

While I might not miss or feel much pity for the former, I do feel sorry for the latter that he died of cancer and didn't have a better life. Just like anyone who dies, I hope all the best for him beyond this life.

Blow it out your ass, AL. Is your little whine supposed to shame us? Make us temper our tongues and join in the MSM fellating of Edward Moore Kennedy?

No dice. You people spent eight years doing everything but physically shooting at George Bush. As Hoosier said, you creamed your shorts in glee at the death of Reagan and at Tony Snow's cancer. You've spent years screaming and begging for Rush and Clarence Thomas to die (the name Julianne Malveaux mean anything to you?).

So frankly, you can all FOAD. Kennedy was a disgrace to the Senate, a drunk, an adulterer, a traitor who conspired with the USSR to throw an election, a moral coward and an all around loathsome human being. The only dollop of sympathy I can give him comes from his surviving his two beatified older, more talented brothers.

Other than that he was a perfect representative for the abomination calling itself the Democrat party.

I mention this, that it was the army that first approached the family about this because I'll bet you a dollar to a can of beans that if Kennedy (a Korea-era veteran) is buried at Arlington next his brothers you can be darn sure that conservatives on talk radio and that blogosphere will claim that political pressure was brought to bear on the army and that the White House and/or Democrats pulled strings to get him there.

I'm certain that's what they will say. Nothing that involves any liberal is beyond these folks to denigrate.

For once I agree with Garage and Alpha. Ted Kennedy does not deserve a pass for his flaws, or for his despicable conduct in the Kopechne case. But we have no idea what kind of penance he may have done for Mary Jo's death, and had no right to expect that he reveal his prayers of the last 40 years to get our forgiveness. That is between the Senator and God.

Dancing on someone's grave nearly always shows the dancer in a bad light. This is not one of the exceptions to the general rule.

I'd agree that the left may have gone a bit hyper at times with Bush but don't say we started it.

Not when some callers to talk radio (including some I listened to) actually celebrated the day Ron Brown's plane flew into a mountain back during the Clinton era. I even remember an (Albuquerque) local talk show host saying, on air, "the only thing to mourn is that the President himself wasn't on that plane with Brown."

There is nothing at all that the left said about Bush that is worse than what the right said about Clinton (in fact to this day some people still believe that the Clintons had Vince Foster and Jim McDougal murdered.)

I'd agree that the left may have gone a bit hyper at times with Bush but don't say we started it. Not when some callers to talk radio (including some I listened to) actually celebrated the day Ron Brown's plane flew into a mountain back during the Clinton era

It is dumb to speculate about "who started it". People have been celebrating the deaths of their political enemies -- or in some cases *causing* the deaths of their political enemies -- for thousands of years. For example, during the 20th century leftists assassinated two Presidents they saw as too right-wing or pro-capitalist (Kennedy and McKinley) and attempted to assassinate three others (Truman, Nixon and Bush).

There is nothing at all that the left said about Bush that is worse than what the right said about Clinton

Just one obvious example of something the Left said about Bush that was worse than anything the Right said about Clinton is the accusation that he orchestrated the Iraq War to enrich his oil buddies. Accusations of rape or assassination pale in comparison to accusations of mass murder for cash.

in fact to this day some people still believe that the Clintons had Vince Foster and Jim McDougal murdered.

And 35% of Democrats believe that Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance and let them happen. That quite obvious qualifies as "worse than anything the Right said about Clinton" too, don't you think?

you can be darn sure that conservatives on talk radio and that blogosphere will claim that political pressure was brought to bear on the army and that the White House and/or Democrats pulled strings to get him there.

First of all, it isn't clear why you would think "the army approached the Kennedy family" negates a claim that Democrats pulled strings to get Kennedy into Arlington. The army is, after all, currently run by a Democrat.

That being said, so far as I can tell Ted Kennedy qualifies for burial in Arlington. John F. Kennedy qualifies (as a war hero and President), and the Arlington rules allow otherwise non-qualifying veterans to be buried along with qualifying relatives.

There is nothing at all that the left said about Bush that is worse than what the right said about Clinton (in fact to this day some people still believe that the Clintons had Vince Foster and Jim McDougal murdered.)

What? When did people on the right compare Clinton to Hitler? Did anyone on the right ever produce a propaganda piece hit-job on their own president like Fahrenheit 9/11?

Did you miss how Bush was conspiring with the Jews and bin Laden to carry out 9/11. Something like that, anyway, I couldn't follow it very well.